Blog
Book Review: Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg
On March 25, 2021 at noon ET, CEI is hosting a double book forum featuring Johan Norberg, the 2019 winner of CEI’s Julian L.
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
CEI published its new Agenda for Congress. We also held a launch event featuring Sen. Rand Paul. Meanwhile, the 2021 Federal Register…
Blog
Agenda for Congress: Regulatory Reform
CEI’s new agenda for Congress is out now. If you’re interested only in certain issues, individual chapters are downloadable here. We also…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress passed a $1.9 trillion spending bill, some of which may actually be COVID-related. Agencies issued new rules ranging from eastern hellbenders to reentry…
Blog
Why Facebook’s Antitrust Cases Should Be Dropped
Facebook filed today to dismiss antitrust lawsuits against it today by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and several state attorneys general. One of…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
One sign that the worst of COVID is likely now past is that instead of disease and economic hardship, people got riled up over…
Blog
Some Good Tariff News
I’ve written before about the 17-year-long dispute between the United States and the European Union over Boeing and Airbus subsidies. Each jurisdiction has…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
COVID-19 cases are finally in decline as vaccinations continue, to the point where there is reason for cautious optimism. Congress was busy with a…
Blog
The Regional Differences Argument against a $15 Minimum Wage
The strongest political argument against increasing the federal minimum wage is the regional differences argument. Basically, while a $15 minimum wage might not be…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a four-day week due to Washington’s Birthday (see my colleague John Berlau’s recent book, George Washington, Entrepreneur). The Perseverance rover landed…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Former President Trump’s impeachment trial was the big new story, though there is little suspense about the outcome. Meanwhile, agencies issued new rules ranging…
Blog
Upcoming CEI Event: Bart Wilson on The Property Species
At noon ET on Thursday, February 11, CEI is hosting an event with the experimental economist Bart Wilson, author of The…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Senate passed the big budget reconciliation bill last week on a 50-50 tie broken by Vice President Harris. This week will see the…
Blog
Proposed European Tech Regulations Will Backfire, Badly
The European Union recently proposed two major tech regulation bills aimed at America’s tech industry, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
As the new administration settles in, it appears they will continue many Trump administration policies, such as “Buy American” provisions and trade protectionism.
Blog
New President, Same Bad Policies
The Trump administration’s trade war gave economics teachers countless real-world examples of bad policy they can use in the classroom. A new open…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Biden was inaugurated on Wednesday. With the usual end-of-administration midnight rush now over, things will likely slow down. It takes time for new…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy MLK Day, everyone. The Trump administration’s final full week was an eventful one. The president was impeached for a second time. The usual…
Blog
Economics Can Help Explain Conspiracy Theorists
There is a lot of conspiracy theory garbage floating around. On January 6, it took a violent turn. Five people died in a coup…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
After last week’s insurrection at the Capitol, the outgoing president, several elected officials, and their supporters have some soul-searching to do. Meanwhile, agencies continued…
Blog
Toward Simplifying Antitrust Regulation
Antitrust regulation is a complex mess. Multiple agencies have overlapping jurisdiction with no set rules for determining who takes which cases. One of the…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Happy new year, everyone. We made it. 2020 was rough, but as I argued last week, it was not the worst year ever.
Blog
Regulation in 2020: Some Quick Numbers
The 251st and final issue of the 2020 Federal Register was released this morning. Here are some of the initial findings: Federal agencies issued…
Blog
2020 Was Difficult. It Was Not the Worst Year Ever
It’s been a hard year, and I am hardly alone in being glad it’s almost over. But was 2020 the worst year ever?…
Blog
Best Books of 2020: Joseph Henrich – The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
It’s early, but The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich will likely…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week’s drama over the combined COVID-19 spending bill and omnibus budget bill ran over into Christmas, spoiling a three-day work week in Washington.
Blog
Best Books of 2020: Virgil Henry Storr and Ginny Seung Choi – Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals? (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019)
Most people see markets as dens of greed and moral corruption. In their new book, Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals?,…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
COVID vaccine rollout has started. While immunizing millions of people will take several months, it looks like the worst is almost past. For scientists…
Blog
To-Do List for 2021: Just Get Rid of AB5
It isn’t just Washington that gets a fresh start beginning in January. California gets one, too. One of the top items on the Golden…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The big news is that the Food and Drug Administration is poised to follow several other countries’ lead in approving one or more coronavirus…
Blog
The Relevant Market Fallacy and Facebook’s Antitrust Cases
Facebook was hit by two separate antitrust complaints this week. One is from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the other is from…
Blog
A Big-Picture View of the Antitrust Debate
In this month’s issue of Reason magazine, I have a feature-length article on the bipartisan push to revive antitrust enforcement. If you don’t…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The midnight regulatory rush is on, with one of the year’s highest weekly page counts last week. The 2020 Federal Register is on pace…
Blog
Walter Williams, 1936-2020
Walter Williams passed away this week at age 84. He was the rare economist to succeed as both an academic and a popular…
Blog
America Really Is Revolutionary
Several scholars I respect, including Daniel Hannan in his 2013 book Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World, have argued…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Thanksgiving was rather different than most years, and not in a good way. Hopefully, with viable vaccines on the way, it will be back…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Thanksgiving will be a little different this year. With the recent news about promising COVID-19 vaccines, next year’s turkey celebration should be closer to…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2020 election is finally, mercifully, over. Barring a surprise in the Georgia Senate runoffs, we will continue to have divided government. This arrangement…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2024 election season officially began on Wednesday. The 2020 Federal Register topped 70,000 pages right on election day, and is on pace to…
Blog
The 2020 Election Actually Had Some Free-Market Victories
Neither presidential candidate has much interest in limited government. But over at National Review, I look at some neglected down-ballot…
Blog
Regulatory Relief Needs Better Transparency
Getting rid of #NeverNeeded regulations is one of the most important policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The short-term benefits are obvious, but…
Blog
James Madison on Why Politics Ruins Everything
Politics has a way of ruining everything. Even kind and intelligent people go through an instant metamorphosis when the conversation changes to politics. Their…
Blog
America Really Is Revolutionary
Several scholars I respect, including Daniel Hannan in his 2013 book Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World, have argued…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Los Angeles Dodgers won baseball’s World Series. GDP numbers bounced back in a big way, though the economy is still smaller…
Blog
Record GDP Numbers Need Context: Good news, but More to Do
Most of the talk about today’s GDP numbers will be related to the election. It shouldn’t. Presidents don’t run the economy; hundreds of…
Blog
New CEI Paper: Antitrust Policy in Europe, Lessons for America
Today, CEI is releasing a new paper on antitrust policy in the European Union by Swiss competition commissioner Henrique Schneider. Europe’s approach to…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In the news last week, the Justice Department filed an antitrust case against Google. It is the highest-profile antitrust case since the 1998-2002 Microsoft…
Blog
Not the Strongest Case: DOJ’s Google Antitrust Complaint
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an antitrust complaint against Google. It marks the beginning of the first major monopolization case since…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a four-day week due to Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day—the controversy over which was just one of the things people were…
Blog
Tit-for-Tat Tariffs Don’t Work: Boeing and Airbus Show Why
A 16 year-long aerospace subsidies dispute between the United States and the European Union began another round this week. The U.S. claims that the…